>> well, first of all, remember that as part of the budget control act the president signed into law about a trillion dollars in cuts and right now the president's priority is to pass a middle class tax cut and benefit 97% of small businesses, and that's the first priority and then, obviously, second part is to deal with the fiscal cliff and he's put entitle and spending cuts on the table and i think really, the issue here is whether republicans are going to be on the tax rates for the upper income folks. if that happens i think we'll have an agreement. if it it doesn't we could go over the fiscal cliff and right now the economy is in a fragile position. >> no one can argue with that one. a lot of criticism on both sides and a lot pointing to republicans that they want to see the fiscal cliff happen. is there any upside if we actually go over the cliff? >> there's no upside if we go over the cliff and what you've seen the last couple of weeks is political theater. that's how we negotiate things here in washington d.c. and the good news, the president put forth a plan and republicans